Monday, January 6, 1997

Department of Justice

(Statement by The Honourable Allan Rock andThe Honourable Herb Gray Regarding the Case of Brian Mulroney v. The Attorney General of Canada et al - Monday, January 6, 1997)

MINISTER ROCK

This morning in Montreal, Counsel for the parties in the Airbus Litigation appeared before the presiding trial judge to announce that the action had been settled.

We have now released a full text of the agreement in separate documents.

Today's agreement is, I believe, in the best interests of the Canadian Government, the Canadian Justice System and the Canadian taxpayer.

Starting last night with leaks and `spin' about this agreement there has been a lot of comment and speculation about what is in it.

Let me start by telling Canadians what is not in the agreement:

-There is no $50 million damages payment to Mr. Mulroney - as he has been demanding for more than a year in his law suit. In fact, Mr. Mulroney has now dropped any claim to compensation for damages.

-This agreement does not stop the RCMP's ongoing criminal investigation, into Airbus, or give anyone - including Mr. Mulroney - effective immunity from such an investigation.

-In fact, under the Agreement, it is clear that the RCMP will continue its investigation in its entirety and it is now free to carry it through to whatever conclusion is appropriate.

It is important to note that Mr. Mulroney has accepted what the Government has said all along, that the Airbus investigation was begun by the RCMP on its own, that there was no political interference, and that the Department of Justice and the RCMP, in transmitting the Letter of Request, acted within their legitimate responsibilities. Mr. Mulroney has also acknowledged that the procedure used in sending the Letter of Request in this case was the same as that followed in numerous previous Requests for Assistance under the current government and his own administration.

For our part, this settlement agreement does acknowledge that the letter of request sent to Switzerland contains some words that, taken on their own, indicated incorrectly that the RCMP had already concluded that illegal activity had occurred. The reality is that no such conclusion had been reached and, based on the evidence received to date, has still not been reached in the ongoing investigation.

The publication of language in a Letter of Request was completely unprecedented. To this day, it is not known how the newspaper that first reported the matter obtained a copy of a non-governmental summary of the document.

It should be noted that the Government and the RCMP have decided that costs are to be paid to achieve this settlement. No damages will be paid, because under the Settlement Agreement, the issue of liability was not admitted, nor pursued. The amount of the costs will be determined through arbitration. There will be no payment for items such as media management advice. The only costs that will be paid are those that were reasonably incurred in the prosecution of this action.

There is no doubt that the cost of this settlement to Canadian taxpayers will be far less than we would have spent by going on with a lengthy and complex trial.

I know a lot of people will be surprised that this case has been settled. Some will ask why Mr. Mulroney's legal costs are being paid. Let me explain.

First, my own experience as a trial lawyer tells me that there is no such thing as a sure case. There are always risks in going to trial. I have already referred to elements of risk in this case, including some of the language in the letter, and the enormous cost of a lengthy trial.

When public money is involved, we have an obligation to minimize risks. Obviously, we would have preferred not even to pay legal costs. But two events late last week convinced us that it was in the public interest to settle this case even if it meant paying legal costs to the plaintiff.

My colleague, Mr. Gray, will speak to those events and other issues.

MINISTER GRAY

There were three reasons that led the RCMP to recommend a settlement.

The first and paramount reason was to ensure the integrity of the ongoing police investigation.

Throughout the past year, consistent efforts have been made to protect the overall investigation, the identity of police sources, and the evidence itself.

The risk that these objectives might not be achieved and that, directly or indirectly, a serious precedent might be set that would damage well established police investigation policies, led to the conclusion that Mr. Mulroney's legitimate costs should be paid as a means of achieving settlement and eliminating this risk.

Secondly, the ruling of the Federal Court last Friday reinforced the very real possibility that the RCMP could be forced to disclose information obtained during the course of its police investigation - despite its objections raised under the Canada Evidence Act.

This ruling, and other proceedings, have brought home to the RCMP the very great risk that testimony might be required that would have the effect of jeopardizing the entire investigation.

Finally, we learned three days ago that, during the investigation, there may have been a disclosure by a member of the RCMP investigative team to an unauthorized third party outside government, about who was named in the Letter of Request.

There is no indication that this alleged communication can be linked to the actual publication in the Financial Post of a non-governmental summary of the Letter of Request. I should also stress that this new element is not the cause of Mr. Mulroney's complaint against the government.

While the Privacy Act prevents disclosure of the names of either individual involved, I can tell you that the Commissioner has already initiated a Code of Conduct investigation and he will be available to you following this press conference to discuss the details of this process.

Therefore, these three reasons, the overall need to protect the investigation, the decision last Friday and the apparent disclosure, led to the RCMP decision to support settlement of this case in a manner that includes payment of Mr. Mulroney's costs.

MINISTER ROCK

One final note. For more than a decade, under this and former governments, requests for assistance have been sent by the Department of Justice on behalf of police in Canada to governments around the world. There was a presumption that the written Requests would never become public and that in keeping with the international practice, statements of wrongdoing could be made about people under investigation so that foreign authorities could quickly grasp the essence of the police theory.

We now know that the process must change and have taken steps to minimize the risk of something going wrong.

Within a month of the publication of the Request for Assistance in this case, we began to change the practice. Over the past year, the Deputy Minister has put procedures in place to minimize the risk of repetition to the greatest extent possible. In addition, we have implemented a new procedure to review the system periodically in the future to determine whether any additional changes are required.

Finally, I should point out that the efforts made by the parties to settle this case were greatly assisted by the efforts of the Honourable Alan B. Gold, who served as a facilitator through the process. I know that I speak on behalf of all parties in expressing to the Honourable Mr. Gold our thanks for his help.

And now, we would be pleased to receive any questions you might have.